Enough Yusheng for the whole block By Neal Cooke AMATEUR fisherman Salim Sulaiman's net was so heavy that he thought he had caught a shark. Fisherman's catch of a lifetime was too big to be eaten and too big for Underwater World, so the 5.3 m sawfish was set free. -- JOYCE FANG Indeed, as he began pulling the 2.1 m net into his fibre-glass motor boat off Changi Point yesterday morning, he sighted a dorsal fin. But as he and his cousin, Mr Fandi Selamat, struggled to pull in the net cast overnight, he got the shock of his life. 'I saw a nearly 1-m saw-toothed snout and two large eyes,' he told The Straits Times. With 15 years of fishing experience, Mr Salim, a driver, realised that he had netted the rare, large sawfish. It took him some time to calm down his excited cousin, also 42, amid the wild thrashings of the trapped fish. He decided to head back to shore, dragging the net and its prize catch. But because of the added weight, the boat took 30 minutes to reach the beach along Nicoll Drive. There, as word spread, some 20 people crowded around his boat. Seven men ran into the shallow waters and helped to pull the fish onto the beach after cutting the net. It took another 10 minutes to untangle the fish. The sawfish is related to sharks and rays. It feeds on small fish and inhabits the sandy or muddy bottoms of shallow coastal waters. 'I realised how big it really was when I saw it on the beach,' Mr Salim said. 'It is the biggest fish that I have ever seen in my life. 'It could have weighed about 500 kg and was 5.3 m long - almost like a big car.' He informed Underwater World at Sentosa of his catch, but he was told that his find was too big for their aquarium. So he decided to set it free. The same group of men then huffed and puffed to push the sawfish back into the sea. 'At first it just wriggled about in the water, and we feared that it was dying. But after a few minutes, it slipped away. 'It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me and, boy, was it thrilling,' he said.